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Nov 16, 2011

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 Julian Lim

THEME: GO OFF, don't GOOF OFF! Common phrases starting with the words, "GO OFF" are clued* as if the words showed up in the theme answers; but instead, they are reserved for the unifier. This results in some odd-looking partials until you pull it all together. Then, you find that the theme questions define the answers quite nicely.

* With asterisks.

A 17. *Get carried away : (GO OFF) THE DEEP END.

A 64. *Act prematurely : (GO OFF) HALF COCKED.

D 11. *Lose it : (GO OFF) ONE'S ROCKER.

D 28. *Digress : (GO OFF) ON A TANGENT.

And the unifier: A 40. Explode, and words needed to complete the four starred answers :GO OFF. This filled in partially from the perps, and it was not immediately obvious how to parse the goofy-looking "_OOFF" until I took a good look at the clue.

Hi, gang. Reporting here from the DEEP END, it's JazzBumpa, the HALF-COCKED trombonist. I don't recall seeing a theme approach quite like this before, so high marks to Mr. Lim for a creative and tight theme. With that in mind, let's GO OFF exploring it. We'll find some other gems, for sure.

ACROSS

1. Response to a good barb : OH, SNAP! Really? the urban dictionary informs me that this is a playful phrase, usually uttered by a bystander rather than the barbee, and attributes it to Tracy Morgan of SNL.

7. Wyo. neighbor : IDA. Why oh, why oh did I ever leave Ohio? 'Cuz I went to IDAHO in search of spuds. Or abbreviations.

14. Water delivery system : PIPAGE. I stumbled over this odd, clumsy, but perfectly legitimate word.

15. Relatives : KIN. I have one sister, and three brothers-in-law.

16. One-named "May It Be" singer : ENYA. This is not the first time Eithne Ní Bhraonáin has appeared in my puzzle blogging. I totally forgot that she performed this hauntingly beautiful song - her original composition - over the closing credits of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie of the Lord of the Rings sequence. The rest of the magnificent score is by Howard Shore.

19. Didn't chuck : KEPT. Chuck, as in throw out.

20. The Trojans, familiarly : SO. CAL. The SO CALLED Trojans are the athletic teams of Southern California University. Is there another interpretation?

21. Obvious : EASY TO SEE. I hope everyone was able to see this easily.

23. Sash worn in a ryokan inn : OBI. Having no clue what a ryokian inn might be, but having the "I" from a perp, I took a swag at OBI.

68. Flubbing it : ERRING. Consult that awful Lions-Bears game from Sunday for many real life illustrations.

69. Laryngitis specialists, for short : E.N.T'S. Ear, Nose and Throat. Dr's. Not Tolkein's Tree-like entities, who are covered with BARK, but never go sailing.

70. Reporter's question : WHO? Along with What? Where? When? Why? and How? An old singing TV AD for the Detroit News went "What in the world's going on? If you read the News you'll know."

71. Taoism founder : LAO TSE

DOWN

1. Elects : OPTS

2. Greeting from Kermit the Frog : HI-HO. According to Answers.com, this is correct. Ribbit!

3. Design detail, briefly : SPEC. Specification.

4. Zilch : NADA. Nothing, slangily.

5. Unending : AGE LONG. I tried TOO LONG, which was just LONG enough, but wrong.

6. End of a quip? : PEE. The letter "P." This is awful. A spelt out letter is lame, lame, fill; and cluing it self-referentially only compounds the lame-itude, marring an otherwise fine puzzle.

7. Big name in do-it-yourself furniture : IKEA. Some of my KIN love this place.

8. Loud noises : DINS. The rule for quiet hideaways is "no DINS in the dens!"

9. "Even so ..." : AND YET

10. Earl Grey alternative : PEKOE. Teas for your nice cup, eh! Perhaps someone can fill us in on the subtleties of tea GENRES. I can say that Earl Grey is black tea flavored with essence of bergamot, a citrus fruit.

12. Compose email : TYPE. We all type, but does anyone use a typewriter, these days?

13. Fill totally : SATE. Typically, but not exclusively, referring to an appetite.

66 comments:

I had a pause a bit before getting the theme, but once I got it the rest of the puzzle was mostly straightforward.

I ran into a bit of resistance in the NW where PIPAGE seemed like a totally made-up word, PEE took awhile to get (nice tricky clue!) and neither AGELONG nor SOCAL sprung immediately to mind. OH SNAP was perfectly clued, but it also took awhile to get.

Elsewhere, the crossing of SLOANE and LANAI was a bit nasty. I've never heard of the former but was able to guess the latter. Molokai sounds vaguely Hawaiian, and I remembered that LANAI is Hawaiian as well, so it fit. Besides, with S_OANE in place, what else was it going to be? SHOANE? SPOANE?

Fun write-up, JazzB. Loved all your tangents and links! I remembered the song at the end of “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but did not realize Enya had sung it. Thanks for sharing. I think ALTA Vista means “high view”, and the city is so named because of the beautiful vistas that can be seen from those heights.

I struggled with PIPAGE, too. Did a “Huh??”, scratched my head, shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

I laughed when I saw “Chits in a pot” for the clue to IOUs. I had used this clue in one of my puzzles, and LaLaLinda did a double take when she thought the “c” was an “s”…funny stuff!!

But Hahtool, you take the prize with your PEE/whizzer comment. I snorted the coffee right out my nose on that one!

This was a struggle today, but I managed to parse everything except the NW corner. I can't ever remember using or hearing the phrase, OH SNAP and PEE never entered my mind. One lousy letter and I couldn't even come up with a wag. Well, PEE ON IT.

This was a fun Wednesday romp. Got the theme by the time I'd worked over to 11D. Tried SPEED for HASTE, but we'd already had UPTOSPEED, so that got changed quickly.

I winced at PIPAGE, and like HondoH I got OHSNAP, but I didn't get it. The perps gave me SOCAL, and I figured that was the obligatory sports answer, but then along came ESPN and RYAN. Fortunately, I knew that one. He sells his own specialty beef in Texas restaurants.

Nice, but challenging puzzle Mr. Lim, and I was short on 2 or 3 words on the top left. I was on the verge of giving up, but I plugged thru and got most of the others. JazzB, very humorous and fun commentary. Thanks to both of you.

'Pipage' sounds like it would come out of a pipette ( jr. chemistry lab - ).

I remember reading that the word 'chit' is of Indian origin. British colonials in India, often signed chits in their club for their drinks ( and those of others, they entertained )- since paying with money was considered gauche. They settled their bills at the end of the month. To be called 'chit shy', was a gross insult, and meant that you were averse to paying your share of communal rounds of drinks. Chit still means a short note, in India, much like a memo etc.

Note: Yesterdays, Alt QOD, by Jackie Mason, appeared to me to sound somewhat anti-Semitic - and I typed it in, very hesitantly.

Per Wiki, Jackie Mason, was ordained a Rabbi, before he took up comedy - so, in following a general American custom, a supposedly anti-Semitic remark coming from a Jew, is apparently not considered to be one. Thus.

Todays Alt QOD:- One must be very careful when reading health books. You may die of a misprint. ~ Mark Twain.

This was very hard, with PIPAGE and AGE LONG (one word or two?) hard to see. The theme popped out early, so it did get finished.

OYER is French meaning to hear. Thus OYEZ is 'you hear' which can be expressed hear ye. It stems from the days when French and not English was the international language of the law. The US Supreme Court still begins each session OYEZ OYEZ OYEZ.

Speaking of verb conjugation, I once made the horrible and breakfast inappropriate error going too fast conjugating a verb out loud in class.

DNF today. Got stuck in the NW, have never heard of OH SNAP, HIHO (as a Kermit quote), SPEC used that way. Would have put bladder for PIPAGE if it had fit, especially if I'd had a clue about PEE. Couldn't come up with DEEP END or OPTS for some reason either and SO CAL is not in my wheelhouse at all.

I've never thought of HASTE as a synonym for alacrity, which I thought meant pizzazz or elan.

The rest was pretty much all WAGs. For didn't chuck I thought first of not chundering/throwing up. Always wondered how a person called Charles feels about that nickname.

Anony-Mouse: with all due respect, just because something is in Wiki doesn't make it so. Just because Jackie Mason made anti-Semitic statements, doesn't make it any less hateful. One must also consider the audience and context.

That NW was a corker. I'm sure PIPAGE is on the level, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. At least I remembered "HI HO, Kermit the frog here" from the wonderful Muppet Show. The rest of the puzzle was straightforward enough.

Loved the write-up, JzB! I smiled upon noticing within your YouTube segment that the lovely "Sheep May Safely Graze" comes from the Hunting Cantata. I guess we can count on the hunter to recognize that sheep are not game animals. :-)

Hahtool - LMAO over your eloquent take. and IDing of the subtheme of PEE etal. Got the unifier early which helped with the *'d words. No real issues. Did not like OH SNAP, but did think the puzzle was particularly difficult. I also agree with Kazie on HASTE.

Alta Vista sure brought back memories of early Internet days. Alta Vista and Lycos were my favorite search engines. Then there was Dogpile, which checked the query on several search engines and returned the results in one place. Somewhere along the line this little upstart company called Google decided to get into what everyone thought was an overcrowded field. Who needed another search engine? I guess we all did, judging by the results.

Hahtool: (with respect - ) , Duly noted. Since my Alt QOD's come out of a newspaper, I assumed it had passed the reasonable-ness test. I am now learning belatedly that, not everything 'thats fit to print' is 'generally acceptable'.

Good catch. I didn't know that "Sheep May Safely Graze" came from the Hunting Cantata. It's abeautiful hymn - Bach at his melodious best.

Bach's music is never easy. We just scuttled "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" from a trombone quartet performance coming up this Saturday, since we couldn't nail it down with only two rehearsals. We are keeping this - though at a slower, more playable tempo.

Seems like the perfect time for a Will Rogers quote:There are three kinds of men:The ones that learn by reading.The few who learn by observation.The rest of them have to PEE on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

A DNF for me - I also never got through the NW corner. Had OPTS and PEE, and that's it. I don't know anyone who "familiarly" refers to the Trojans as SO CAL. I even would have accepted ESS CEE here over SO CAL.

Funnily enough, I have heard PIPAGE before, but more in a DF-slang kind of way.

kazie, you've never heard that famous idiom: "Alacrity makes squander"

Since the usual translation for "ryokan" is "Japanese inn" (think sleeping on the floor and no soap in the hot bath water), I couldn't help but think the only thing more redundant than "ryokan inn" might be "Mt. Fujiyama".

But then again, less than a week ago I spent the night in a Days Inn M/Hotel.

Alta Vista. High view or an overview sort of concept. this was the best search engine before Google. It also had the first machine translations of web sites in Babel fish. Created by Digital Equipment Company (DEC) in the late eighties, they did not see the opportunity and it was sold to Yahoo at the end of DEC corp.

DEC was the computer company USA ran on, (think room sized computers, many computer languages and OS)but now it is a historical footnote. One wonders where Apple (which is a toy computer company by comparison) might be in 20 years time.

PEE (with a groan) and NADA were the only clues I could get in the NW corner. I have heard "Oh, Snap" on a Pepsi radio add where the elves see Santa packing a thong to go on vacation, and on the TV show House. But it was not in my brain this morning.

I got GO OFF after the 2nd * clue. Until then I was puzzled as to why the answers were incomplete, i.e. I just had DEEP END and I couldn't think of a short verb that would fit.

Since "ryokan" is most often translated as "Japanese inn" (think sleeping on the floor [futons] and no soap in the hot bath water), about the only thing I can think of that's more redundant than "ryokan inn" is "Mt. Fujiyama".

This is an interesting puzzle, The unifier was needed to complete the theme answers. The NW was a little difficult, until I divided SOCAL into SO CAL, a common abbreviation in the news and sports. When PIPing didn't work, I immediately tried PIPAGE. I got OHSNAP all from perps, and hoped it was correct.It was new to me.

My stay at a ryokan was quite comfortable. I slept on a soft futon on the floor and was covered by a kind of quilt. The comunal bath does not have soap, because it is good manners to be extremely clean before you soak in the hot spring water. In the room before you entire the bath there are hand held shower sprays with soap and shampoo provided. You are expected to wash thoroughly. The bath had a glass divider through which you could see the trees and go around it to bathe outdoors if you so desired. The bath was for women only and the trees gave privacy.

I am subbing in music today but have a few minutes to blog on a teacher’s machine she is letting me use. I have not read your comments but…

Musings-PEE? Really?-Sash in clue for 3 letter word? Duh!-SLED as an answer where Citizen Kane is also referenced-Girl named KIA in class today pronounces it ky’ uh-Wife’s fav is MRGOODBAR-USA Today had an article about bullets being fired at the White House. Reminded me of WH’s admonition that we are so close to a Biden presidency. Yikes!-Gotta go, someone let in a bunch of kids.

I also enjoyed this Wed. romp. Also had difficulty with that northwest corner, but when I got go off everything else fell into place. Oh snaps was new to me heard of giving or getting snaps,or ginger snaps. I'm also not a fan of SoCal thought it was about trojans that invaded Rome,but being a Floridian not a fan of Trojans,Bruins and the like.

This LA resident associates SOCAL much more often with the Edison utility than with USC. In fact, I've read that USC "officially" prefers NOT be referred to as "Southern Cal" and certainly not as SOCAL.

JzB: Good writeup. Thanks for the trombone 4 link. I browsed around from that and ended up on Canadian Brass's rendition of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor.Couldn't believe a brass group could do justice to that, since I'd heard it live on the big organ in the Mormon Tabernacle. But WOWEE! So impressive! As a former trumpet player, my tongue is hanging out in fatigue just mentally trying to follow that high trumpet part.

As for the puzzle, I didn't make an early entry that I didn't erase--and sometimes re-enter. I wanted pipeline and had pee, but erased and eventually had to come to JzB to explain. Really enjoyed this amusing puzzle once I got going. Unusual that I had most of the long answers before many perps.

The ryokan provided a "towel" for us to take to the hot spring communal bath. It was very thin and about the size of a U.S. hand towel. It is hard to get dry twice with that, once after the shower and once after bathing. The local women had no qualms about naked communal bathing (all women here), but we Americans tried to hide behind our towels. Exactly what part of yourself do you screen?

The towels are so meager because there are few clothes dryers there and big towels are difficult to air dry.

The ryokan provides yukatas, thin cotton robes to be worn in the inn and around town. shopping, etc. Each ryokan has a distinctive print for their yukatas. The local young men fold up the towels they use at the hot springs and carry them on their heads.

The men were amazed that American women would wear their yukatas around town, instead of western clothing, although all the local women wore them.

It is great to immerse your self in a culture to get the flavor of it.

Hello! I had trouble with Summer's column too but thought it was clever. I didn't know OH SNAP or PIPAGE or AGELONG and therefore, didn't like them much. Chits in a pot was fun but I didn't see the humor until I came here.

JzB - what I like most about your turn at the wheel is that you leave no stone unturned. Every clue gets a comment, every answer gets her chance to shine. Not a lot of white empty space in your write-ups!

Hillside whizzers and SLEDS - doesn't every guy scrawl his name in the snow at some point?

Anon at 12:30: Thanks for the Bobby McFeran link. I didn't realize how good a musician he was. Amazing also that so many in the audience knew the BGAM. I sang it when young, then to my babies. My daughter played it on the cello in high school. She had cello and harp play it at her wedding to honor the mothers. We aren't even Catholic. Just love good music.

Not being a Californian, this what we hear and see.Link socalSOCAL is a no-brainer for us non-USC readers.TROJANS is an immediately recognizable brand name. It was my first fleeting thought also. Ah, the days of youth and innocence??

I am embarrassed by reading my moronic post. Of course, yukataS is not correct. There are no S plurals in Japanese. Yukata, singular: yukata, plural.

Hola Everyone,Pipage? Oh Snap? Hi Ho? No wonder I didn't finish the NW corner. I did fill in all the theme answers, and most of the short words, so the puzzle wasn't a total give up today. The NW corner and the SE corner both gave me fits.

I didn't know how to spell Senhora. The Portuguese wasn't in my memory bank! It is now. I also know that it is Acrophobia, not acriphobia. Learning moments for me today. I was totally misdirected on the tens clue. Thanks Jazz for great writeup. The light kept going on as I read your take on things.

My first time on the site. I'm from Mexico and I'm doing some crosswords of the LA Times, but your blog gave me the explnations to some weird clues and I thank you for that. Like de quiP one, really bad clue haha I'm working with my english vocabulary but I think with 28 correct answers from this puzzle I'm doing great.

Oh snap was an all to common phrase around my house when my sons were in high school, so that answer was in fact a snap/ i think i may have heard Ashton say it on the now unwatchable Two and a half men

Reviewer keep up the good work, our founder C.C. is from China, and now not only does puzzles in English, she creates them.

JzB: enjoyed the very different marionette thing. All these years I never knew the name of it. Just thought it was Hitchcock's personal theme. Who knew Gounod? My learning experience for the evening. Thanks!

I envy you still being able to play trombone. My breath support gave out in the mid-70's after my fourth child.I can still sing but only for my own enjoyment.

JazzB - Just got back to read the day's posts, loved the trombone quartet! In retrospect I wish I had studied the 'bone. It's just the swingingest, jazziest bit of brass out there.

That said, to get a break from woodwinds I took up the string bass for our dance band. I like an instrument of that size, played while standing - you almost dance with the thing. Another advantage: all through rehearsal, a bass player can snack on M&M's from the big bag sitting on the piano!

For those who have not played wind instruments: you can't munch chocolate candies and then blow into a horn, the chocolate in your spit would gum up the thing. Not a problem with a string instrument.

Good Morning, the next day, folks. Thank you, Julian, for a good puzzle. Thank you, Jazz, for the review.

I was so busy on Wednesday that I never started this puzzle until 10:30 at night. Too tired to finish so I went to bed. Finished this morning.

Had a problem with AGELONG. Had ERELONG for a while. Fixed that.

Got the theme unifier first, and then the theme answers came easily. Enjoyed that part of the puzzle.

OYEZ was totally unknown. I got it with Perps, but had no idea until I read Lemonade's comments. I expect I will never be at the U S Supreme Court and hear that proclamation. However, I do expect we will see this again in a crossword, and pretty soon! You heard it hear first.